


all of that, and such

by dance_across



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos needs to get his goddamn act together and look for the doors already, M/M, Phone Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 14:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2313536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/pseuds/dance_across
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earlier, Carlos watched Cecil shave. Now, Carlos wants to watch Cecil do something else. A phone-sex-centric coda to ep54, "A Carnival Comes to Town."</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of that, and such

**Author's Note:**

> I meant for this just to be fluffy porn. Um. Sorry?

Carlos calls back later that night, just as he promised. Well, the sun hasn’t yet made up its mind about setting, and the clocks are oozing again, but Cecil is hungry for dinner, so he assumes it must be night, or close to it.

The point is, the phone rings. And when the phone rings, Cecil picks up.

“Carlos!”

“Hi, Cecil,” comes Carlos’s lilting tenor, which never fails to make Cecil sigh a little.

“Carlos. Carlos. I’m so glad you called. I was just about to make myself some dinner.” Technically untrue. Cecil was about to tuck himself under a blanket with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Asbury Pork Loin Ice Cream and a fourth glass of wine.

“Ice cream isn’t dinner,” says Carlos. “And you really shouldn’t drink so much. Alcohol is a depressant. It’s a scientific fact.”

Cecil freezes, the unopened pint in his hand. He almost panics. Then he remembers about Carlos’s voicemail from earlier. The one he played on the radio.

“Are you still in the lighthouse?”

“‘In the lighthouse,’ yes,” says Carlos. “‘Still,’ no. I left and came back. I wanted to be here alone, you see, without Alicia. Not that Alicia isn’t nice, but…”

Cecil finds himself holding his breath. _But, but, but._

“…but they aren’t _you_ ,” Carlos finishes at last, tenderly, softly.

Cecil closes his eyes and exhales. And smiles. And remembers that Carlos just _saw_ him closing his eyes and exhaling and smiling. Usually it’s the other way round. The tables have turned. It’s an odd feeling.

“Who else can you see?” asks Cecil. “Everyone in town, or only certain people?”

“Honestly?” says Carlos. “I don’t know. I saw Old Woman Josie and Erika and Erika in one picture. I saw the Mayor in another. And so on, and so on, until I saw _you_ in a picture, and… I decided I didn’t care to see anyone else. It’s hardly scientific of me, getting an incomplete sense of the scope of what these pictures can do, but…”

“But you wanted to see me,” says Cecil, all in one breath.

“I wanted to see you,” confirms Carlos. Cecil can hear the smile in his voice. “And I… I wanted to um. To ask you, um, something.”

“What is it?” asks Cecil. He’s back at the freezer now, and opening the door. A thin blue tentacle reaches out, snatches the ice cream from Cecil’s hand, and draws it back into the dark maw of the freezer. The door slams shut. Half the ice cream will probably be gone by the time Cecil thinks to look for it again. He doesn’t really care.

He doesn’t care because Carlos is hesitating, and when Carlos hesitates, that means Carlos is feeling shy, and when Carlos is feeling shy, good things tend to follow. Very good things.

“What is it, love?” asks Cecil again, softer this time.

“I want,” Carlos begins, and Cecil can practically hear him summoning the courage to put his request into words. “I want to make you come. Over the phone. Like you did for me that time, only this time I want… I want to watch. Because now I can. Because of the mountain and the lighthouse and the picture and because I _miss_ you.”

Cecil can feel his lungs constricting. He wonders if Carlos can see the joy-relief-anticipation on his face, in his stance, in his… well, also in his pants. Because _that’s_ definitely started already.

“Tell me what to do,” is Cecil’s reply.

“Go into the bedroom,” says Carlos. “Our bedroom. Let me see it.”

Cecil does. It’s a smallish room with a largish bed. Two pillows, because they’re each used to sleeping only on one. Cecil’s pillowcase is purple. Carlos’s is green. The green-cased pillow has long since stopped smelling like Carlos. It has started smelling like Cecil, a little bit, because Cecil sometimes sleeps on it. Only sometimes, though.

“Lie down,” says Carlos. “No, wait! Wait. Take off your clothes first. I want… I… what I’d really love, that is, is to see all of you at once.”

When he’s alone, Cecil takes off his belt, then his pants, then his shirt. But now that Carlos is watching, he unbuttons his shirt first, because that’s what Carlos would do if he were here. He always undresses Cecil the same way: a scientific method of sorts. This is one of the constant things that make the variables all the more noticeable.

When Cecil pulls his shirt off, Carlos makes an “mmm” noise.

“Mmm?” echoes Cecil.

“Remember me, touching your chest?” says Carlos. “Running my finger from your collarbone all the way down?”

_Cutting me in half so you could get at my heart?_ adds Cecil, silently. His own index finger traces the familiar line and he says, “Yes. I remember.”

“Good,” whispers Carlos. “Your belt. Undo your belt.”

Cecil does. And then, because he’s impatient, he sheds the rest of it all at once: belt, pants, socks, briefs. His cock is already alert, and he starts to reach for it – but then stops, remembering he’s being watched. Being directed. He shivers with anticipation and asks, “Can you still see me?”

“I can,” says Carlos. “You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

“I’m not, though, I’ve put on weight,” says Cecil. “It’s the wine. I…”

“Aquarius,” says Carlos, sadly.

“Something like that,” says Cecil.

“Those things aren’t meant to be taken literally, you know,” says Carlos.

Cecil shrugs. “And yet.”

“My point still stands,” says Carlos. “You’re beautiful. I always thought so, even before we… always. You know that, right? You’re the loveliest, most radiant man I’ve ever met.”

Cecil doesn’t feel lovely or radiant or beautiful. He feels alone and bare, an aroused idiot holding a phone in an empty bedroom.

He closes his eyes. At least that way he won’t have to _see_ the emptiness. “Don’t flatter me, okay? Just keep talking. Just tell me what to do. Just…”

_Take me out of myself_ , is what he wants to say. _Make me better again, like you did before_. But he can’t. Obviously he can’t. All he can do is wait and be patient, and hope that it doesn’t take another full year for his waiting and patience to bear fruit.

“Lie down,” says Carlos. “Put your head on my pillow. Don’t open your eyes.”

Cecil does what Carlos tells him to do.

“Balance your phone against your ear, if you can,” he continues. “I want both of your hands free.” A pause, while Cecil finds just the right angle. “Good. Good. Now I want you to put one hand over your heart. Just like that. Put the other one over your belly. Now breathe.

“And breathe.

“And breathe.”

The third breath sets something loose inside Cecil, and he feels like he might cry. “Carlos,” he says, through the three glasses of wine and the tears that haven’t come yet.

“I’m here,” says Carlos, warm in his ear. “I’m right here with you.”

“I wish I could see you,” says Cecil. It’s a thing he’s never had to say before. He’s always been able to see everyone – everyone in Night Vale, at least – whenever he wanted to.

“Me too,” says Carlos. “But for now…”

“For now.”

“Touch yourself for me, okay?” says Carlos. “Just one finger. As lightly as you can.”

Cecil shivers again. He takes one finger, the index finger of his left hand, and touches it to his erect cock. He slides it, feather-light, from the base all the way up. He touches the head. There’s already wetness there.

“Beautiful,” says Carlos, yet again. This time there’s a heaviness in his voice – a heaviness that Cecil recognizes from all the times they’ve done this together, in the same room. Somehow, the sound makes Cecil feel less alone. “Now down again.”

Cecil drags his finger down, and Carlos says, “That’s my tongue, Cee. That’s my tongue on you, licking down, slowly, yes, just like that – and then up again. There we go. Beautiful Cecil.”

“Perfect Carlos,” says Cecil, and smiles, because by now the phrase is almost a joke between them. “Are you touching yourself too?”

“Not yet,” says Carlos. “Maybe not at all, tonight. Tonight’s about you. Go up again, will you? Oh, look at you move. Look at the way you _move_ , Cee.”

Cecil realizes that his hips are lifting, just a little, just enough for Carlos to see. He breathes in the idea of Carlos watching, and he lifts them higher. “Use your mouth?” he asks, his voice gone wispy with desire.

“Anything you want,” says Carlos, low and sultry. “My mouth, taking you in, just a little at a time. Just a little. Just a little more.”

Cecil chokes out a laugh. “You do love to make me wait, don’t you.” He curls his hand around his cock – but only the top. This is Carlos’s mouth he’s feeling, minus the heat, minus that clever tongue. Carlos’s mouth, teasing him.

Making him wait.

Cecil groans, pressing his head back against Carlos’s pillow.

“Beautiful,” says Carlos. “Use both hands, now. Imagine me taking you all the way in. Imagine me swallowing you whole, Cee. Imagine—”

“—your head moving up and down on me, and your tongue, and I love you, and that makes it worse…”

“Worse?” says Carlos through the phone, as Cecil’s left hand pumps up and down, the right cupping his balls.

“Better?” says Cecil, breathless. “It’s the same thing, isn’t it. It’s both _more_ something. It’s the same – god – Carlos, I’m—”

“Close,” Carlos finishes. “I can see it, Cee. You’re almost there. You’re almost there, and I can feel the weight of you against my tongue. I can feel you about to come. I’m moving my head faster and faster, and I’m keeping my eyes on your face, because you’re so goddamn… you’re _everything_ when you’re like this. There you go, love. There you go. Almost. Almost. And when you know you can’t hold it back anymore, that’s when you open your eyes, like you always do, and you see me, and I see you, and we—”

Cecil lets out a wordless cry, halfway between a scream and a groan, as he comes hard and fast. He’s waves in an ocean, he’s sand in the desert, and he’s shaped by the wind of Carlos’s voice, and he opens his eyes because maybe it _will_ be like the times before, maybe Carlos _will_ be there, smiling slyly from the foot of the bed, but…

But.

Carlos is saying something, but Cecil can’t hear it through the ringing in his ears. His body is still telling him that this was good, this was so good… but his brain is already beginning to sink back to reality. Carlos isn’t there. Carlos is just a voice on the phone, and Cecil’s alone in their bed with cum cooling on his stomach. Carlos is wandering around a desert, not even trying to get home, and Cecil wants nothing more than to take a shower, swallow the rest of his wine, and go to bed early.

“Cee? Cecil?” Carlos sounds frantic by the time the ringing subsides. “Stupid thing… Hello? Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” says Cecil, hollow and distant, even to his own ears. “I can hear you.”

“Oh, thank goodness, because I—”

Carlos stops abruptly. Cecil wonders if it’s because he can see the tears that are starting to leak out of his eyes. With his right hand, the cleaner one, Cecil covers his eyes.

“Oh, Cecil, no. Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?”

“No,” says Cecil, because where would he even start?

“Was it…” Carlos sounds shy again. “Was it okay? For you, I mean?”

Cecil doesn’t know how to answer that. Not in the yes-or-no way that Carlos seems to want, anyway. So he says, simply, with his hand still over his eyes, “Come home, Carlos. Please, please, just come home.”

And he hangs up.

Setting his phone on the nightstand, he curls onto his side. He doesn’t wash himself first, and he doesn’t put his clothes on, and he doesn’t cover himself with blankets. He just shuts his eyes again, a big spoon without a little spoon to hold, and doesn’t pick up when Carlos calls back. Not the first time, and not the second time. 

There isn’t a third time.


End file.
